Very Expensive Knick Knacks

Being the good mother that I am, and wanting the best for my children, I’m always on the lookout for wholesome opportunities that will help me grow strong, healthy children. In addition to watching their diet, keeping them safe, and loving them beyond words, I realize that it’s important to provide them with opportunities to exercise their growing muscles. . .

Therefore, please explain to me why my children spend most of their time glued to their computers, or reading books, or working on arts and crafts? I’ll tell you what, it’s time for an intervention, that’s what that is!

A reality check moment occurred the other day. Googie was whining to me about how I never let him do any exercise, and how much he loved to run, and how I never let him go out for a run. When he was done with his exposition, and after I was done laughing uncontrollably (kids say the darndest things), I calmed down enough to ask him if he would like to join a cross country team. His brother was on a high school cross country team that also had a grade school team. It seemed to be a great solution to this problem.

He was so excited that he jumped up and down, hugged the guts out of me, and proclaimed me the best mother in the world. After I collected my guts and put them back in my body, we went to the cross country information meeting. He liked what he heard, so off we went to get a pair of real running shoes (real=expensive) and a couple of running outfits. All the bases were covered. No chance for an epic fail.

Eager to begin his first day of practice, Googie was dressed and ready to go. Running shoes. Check. Running clothes. Check. Giant water bottle filled with ice-cold water. Check. And out the door we went. We showed up to practice about thirty minutes early so we relaxed under a tree. The team started to show up. The coaches showed up. Practice began.

Googie had a lot of fun meeting the other kids on the team and taking part in the ice-breaker activities where everyone introduced themselves. Then just like that, the coach told everyone to run around the field to warm up, and a herd of runners took off. After the dust settled, I looked and saw Googie standing in the middle of the field, all alone, crying. 

I ran up to where he was. “What’s wrong?”

“Everyone is faster than I am”

“That’s okay, they have been running for a while. You’re a beginner. It’s okay.”

“I’m going to die!” he cries.

“No, you’re fine. Let’s just walk back.”

“I hate running! Why did you make me run? You think this is fun?”

“Yes, running is fun. You just went out too fast. You’ll be fine.”

“No! I will never run again! I don’t like cross country. I don’t like running on the grass. Why did you make me join cross country? I want to play soccer”

Thinking (or not thinking), I quickly point out, “Sweetie, soccer is running on grass after a ball.” This rational, statement flipped his switch. Did I say rational? Everyone knows that rational and children don't go well together. If Googie was upset before I said that, then he was completely unhinged at that point.

“You just don’t want me to do anything! You don’t want me to exercise! You don’t want me to have fun! You like to see me suffer! I never want to do this again!”  He was hysterical. I would also like to point out that there are not enough exclamation points in this world to express how that child sounded at that moment.

He was upset. I was upset. After I spent a fortune on cross country gear, he just quits on the first day of practice. Although I’m a firm believer that a person should finish what they start, I’m also a firm believer in peace and quiet. I think that twenty-plus years of practice as a mother have taught me this, at the least. And ten years of practice with this particular son have taught me that the probability of a good outcome if I insist he stay on the team and attend practices, would be zero. Weighing my options, I decided that he could quit.

Today, Googie is perfectly happy reading his books about Chemistry, building Rube Goldberg machines, and making a mess in our living room— while his running shoes sit nearby. His running shoes, very expensive knick-knacks, go really well with the décor in that room right now. Trés Chic!

Boys and Bugs and Spit and Blood

Being the only female in a house overrun by testosterone is rather exhausting. Males are noisy, smelly, and messy. A male’s idea of clean and hygienic is rather different than a female’s. For example, males are staunch believers in the ten-second rule; when something edible falls to the ground, they have ten seconds to pick it up and eat it. That’s just ridiculous. Any self-respecting female, or at least any rational person (I’m being redundant, sorry), knows that you only have three seconds to pick food off the ground before it becomes inedible. Then there’s the whole thing about manners. Boys and girls have different ideas of what constitutes polite, social behavior, especially at the dinner table.

According to Emily Post, etiquette expert, there is a correct way to behave at the dinner table, and she has a list of the Top TenTable Manners that are very basic and should be easy to remember. They include chewing with your mouth closed; not making any gross noises at the table, such as, blowing your nose or slurping; not sticking your hand in your mouth (or other orifices, gross!); using your napkin, keeping your elbows off the table; you get the idea. These are just a few of the ten, very basic and easy-to-remember rules, or at least I used to think they were easy to remember. I can’t keep track of how many times I have found myself teaching these rules, or reminding my table-mates of these rules, or how many times the rules get broken around here.

But with all the etiquette rules and whatnot that are out there, I have to say that I’m sure that no other family in the entire world has "The Two Basic Rules of Dinnertime Conversation" that we have at our home. These two rules are always followed around here, and it’s a rare day when both of them are forgotten at dinnertime. We could be talking about politics, religion, current events, or any controversial, non-controversial, or just plain lame topic. These two rules are always followed:

1)    Always bring up a bug of some type in conversation.

2)    Always mention a bodily fluid of some type at the dinner table.

Let me give you a few examples. You would think that the Bible would be a safe topic at the dinner table, but at this house the conversation would somehow turn to Moses, and someone (one of the male youngsters in this house) would most definitely bring up every bug in the ten plagues, as well as how the water was turned into blood. Or how about talking about the beautiful, flowering pear trees, or the sweet-smelling blooms on our linden trees; you would think that was safe, right? But then we would end up talking about bees, flower nectar, and the process that bees go through to make honey (FYI, it involves bodily fluids). Okay, you say, the weather is a safe topic, right? Wrong! We would end up talking about flies in the spring, and how they regurgitate what they eat every time they land on something. Or we would end up talking about mosquitoes in the summer, and how they suck your blood. Babies are cute and safe, you say. Umm, let’s not go there. You get the picture, I hope.

So, if you live in a male-dominated household and are looking for a way to spice up things at your dinner table, or if you want to lose a few pounds, why not consider adopting "The Two Basic Rules of Dinnertime Conversation." You too could be blessed by boys and bugs and spit and blood.

Mama in Pajamas

http://www.mycutegraphics.com

Sitting around the kitchen table, doing school work together as a family, beginning the day at whatever hour works best, wearing pajamas and fuzzy slippers, a typical homeschooling family starts its day. I remember back when I was researching homeschooling this was one of the scenes that was repeatedly painted by homeschooling experts.

I never quite understood the appeal of sitting around past breakfast time still in pajamas. Pajamas are for sleeping and nothing else, that is, unless you're sick or you have a newborn. The thought of going past breakfast still wearing my pajamas is depressing. I can't walk to the mailbox in my pajamas. I'm not sure why, but all I know is that if I have to open the front door for any reason, I will at least put on some real pants.

Apparently, I'm strange (surprised?). It seems that wearing pajamas in public is the thing for the PTO crowd to do, particularly while dropping children off at school. It's like a scene straight out of People of Walmart. I almost feel overdressed in the morning dropping my children off while wearing jeans, a Target crewneck, and gym shoes. That's right, I didn't get the memo. I can almost hear the other moms thinking, "Who does she think she is? Wearing real clothes here like that."

So, in tribute to these moms, and dedicated to their traumatized children, I present to you, my highly-regarded, award-winning, five-star poem entitled "Mama in Pajamas."

Mama in Pajamas
by http://mamarantingnow.blogspot.com/

she drives the kids to school

with rollers in her hair

she looks like such a fool

you wish she wasn't there

she walks out of the car

with slippers on her feet

why does she walk so far

why can't she be discreet

you hope your friends can't see

maybe they're all asleep

oh, Lord please have mercy

or else you just might weep

mama in pajamas

morning, noon and bedtime

tell your shrink your traumas

of mama drama school time

The Reverse Miracle

It's really strange how sometimes a child can feel perfectly fine until it's time to go to school. We've been having some problems with getting Googie off to school in the mornings. He has a behavior contract at his school stating that if he finishes his homework before 8:30 in the evening, I sign his homework notebook and he gets extra time in the gym when he gets to school. You'd think it would be that simple?  Ha!

The main problem we seem to be having is that he comes home completely exhausted from his school day. I pick him up from school (which is about ten minutes away) and as soon as we get home, he falls asleep and stays asleep until the morning. You can imagine how hard it would be for someone to complete their homework while sleeping. You can also imagine how hard it would be to wake up a sleeping child that is either a very heavy sleeper or a gifted actor, one so talented that he won't even wake up for pizza and ice cream.

And so, here we are, it's morning and the dreaded homework wasn't completed the night before. Everyone wakes up, eats breakfast, and starts their day. Googie is happily sitting on the sofa reading a book about family games (that child doesn't read fiction, but I digress) when he calls out, "Mom, do I have to go to school today?" Which actually means, "I didn't complete my homework so I don't want to go to school."

I continue what I'm doing and casually answer, "Yes, it's Thursday. You go to school on Thursday, you know that." He doesn't say anything for quite a while and I continue to pack his lunch and get ready to leave.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, I start to hear strange, wild animal sounds coming from the family room. It either sounds like a raccoon is dying or a coyote is giving birth. As I ponder how a raccoon or a coyote got into the house--maybe the kids left the back door open again last night, or there is something trapped in the chimney; stranger things have happened at this house--I walk over to the family room and find Googie doubled over in apparent pain, groaning, and clutching at his stomach. "My stomach hurts," he moans.

"It's a reverse miracle!" I exclaim as I usher him to the car and take him to school.

Where’s Your Pencil?

We homeschool.  We buy pencils. We buy lots and lots of pencils. We buy pencils by the case, big cases of fancy, Ticonderoga pencils, the ones that sharpen nicely, have nice strong leads that don’t break, pencils that last a long time—well theoretically they would last a long time, but I will never find out if that’s true, because once I sharpen one of these pencils, they get sucked into the black hole that I’m convinced we have in our house.  

Yes, I can always find a brand-spankin’, new pencil in the top drawer of my desk, an everlasting supply of pencils.  And all would be well if I didn’t give them to the children. 

“Googie, here is your phonics assignment for the day, and a pencil.  Go work on this in the other room.  I’ll check with you in about fifteen minutes to see how you’re doing, okay?” I say to my son as I hand him a freshly sharpened pencil and his phonics page.

“Uh, huh,” he says and quickly scampers away.  Fifteen minutes later, I go searching for him all over the house.  Surprisingly, he’s not in the other room.  Pencil, phonics page, and child have all gone AWOL.  And, no, I really didn’t expect to find him in the room, but a mom can dream, a mom can believe, a mom can hope, that her child will actually listen to her.  After another fifteen minutes of searching, I find the child hiding in the bathroom, under a blanket, in the bathtub (no, he didn’t fill the tub with water), reading a book about (his current obsession) astronomy.

“What are you doing in here?”

“Nothing”

“Where’s your phonics page?”

“I don’t know,” he says, still under the blanket.  Realizing that asking him to try to find the phonics page and the pencil would waste a few hours, I decide to go looking for them myself. Fifteen minutes later I find the phonics page under a pile of books in the family room, but the pencil is nowhere to be seen. 

 

“Fine,” I say.  “Here is your phonics page and here is another pencil.  Let’s go over to the other room to work on the page together.”  I follow him to the other room. Ha! I drag him to the other room. 

  

He decides that he wants to sit on the floor to work on his phonics page; I sit on a chair right next to him and pretend to read a book in order to make sure that he’s focused on his work.  Five minutes later I look down to check on him.  “So, how much have you gotten done?”

“I’m almost done,” he says.  I check his page and notice that he has barely started the assignment.

“Where’s your pencil?” I ask.

“What pencil?”

“The one I just gave you.”

Mom, I Can't Find Any Socks

 

I still don’t understand how it can take a child so long to get ready to leave the house.  It’s a fairly simple process.  Usually, he just needs to put on his socks and shoes, find his coat, and that’s it.  My guess is that it should take about ten minutes.  Obviously, I’m an optimistic person, either that or a very naïve one.

“Googie, did you put your shoes on yet?” I yell from the other room.

“Almost,” he replies.

“Hurry up.  We have to leave in ten minutes.”

“Mom, I can’t find my shirt,” he adds five minutes later.

“What? You just had a shirt on.” I continue to yell from the other room.

“Mom, I can’t find my shirt.” He whines. Then he adds, “Do you know where my shoes are?”

“They’re in the hall closet, right in front of you”

“No they’re not.  Mom , where did you put my shoes?”

“Put your shirt on,” I say as I start to walk over to him.  On the way, I find his shirt.  When I get there, he's in the hallway sitting in front of the closet, reading a book about astronomy, and drawing a diagram of a spiral galaxy.  Thank goodness he's still wearing his pants!  I reach into the hall closet, retrieve his shoes, and hand the shirt and shoes to him “Here are your shirt and shoes.  Where are your socks?”

“Mom,” he whines, “I can’t find any socks.”

“Did you look in your drawer?”

“Yes, there are no socks there.  There never are!”  he yells.  

Even though I remember having put socks in his drawer the day before, I want to give him the benefit of the doubt. This child is known for wearing a new pair of socks each time he puts on his shoes, and he has a habit of putting clean clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. He's also known for losing socks and leaving them in unexpected places, so he might be right.  There might not be any socks in his room.  Not to be outdone, once, I conveniently left a big laundry basket full of unmatched socks in the laundry room.  That's right, I only did that once (Wait a second while I adjust my halo.  It's a bit crooked).  By now, I'm beginning to think that he might be right. 

“Did you look?  Let’s go over there right now and see if we can find any.”  We walk into his room and look in his sock drawer.

Obviously, it's been more than ten minutes by now, and we still have to wait for him to put on his socks, his shoes, and find his coat.  Oh, yes, we still have to find his coat, and we all know that his coat won't be in the hall closet like it was a few minutes ago.

Don't Worry About It

This statement, coming from my 8 year old, is definitely cause to worry. Yep, he could be running around acting crazy, making all kinds of noise, harassing his brother, but when he's really quiet and he says, "Don't worry, Mom."  That's when I worry.

"Goggie, did you finish your math?"

"Don't worry, Mom"

"Did you put your shoes away?"

"Don't worry."

"Did you brush your teeth?"

"Don't worry."

And of course, here's my favorite one.  You know, when it's completely quiet...you can hear a pin drop...

"Goggie, what are you doing?"

"Mom! Don't worry about it."

A r r g h ! ! !

Bunny Brains & Green Snake Tails

We are happy to say that Googie is finally eating "real" food, and he sure had fun eating dinner the other day. Hubby had made a dinner of lamb shanks, asparagus, and wild mushroom risotto. We expected Goggie to put up a fuss over eating dinner (like usual); however, Junior had warned him ahead of time that Dad was fixing bunny brains for dinner. Googie was so excited, he couldn't wait to eat it. Hubby put a lamb shank on Googie's plate along with a few asparagus tips and mushroom risotto while Junior kept telling him that the lamb shanks were bunny brains. Well, let me tell you he ate a total of five "bunny brains" with "blood" (ketchup). Then he proceeded to eat all his "green rattlesnake tails" (asparagus tips) washing them down with a tall, icy glass of "saliva" (water), and he ate the risotto. How's that for creative parenting?

I am the Proud Parent of an Eagle Scout

Yikes. You know when Junior finished his Eagle Scout Board of Review I was so proud of him. He was able to earn the Eagle award through his own initiative. Hubby and I didn't micromanage the whole process. Well, I guess you could say that this experience spoiled me and did not prepare me for the Eagle Scout Court of Honor. Now it's my turn to work on an "Eagle Project." It's amazing how much needs to be done for an Eagle award, even after all the "work" is done. Okay, I admit, I am kind of enjoying this, but aren't I busy enough without having some new big event thrown on my lap?

Quiet!

Don't you love Bill Cosby? A few days ago we sat down with the older kids to watch Bill Cosby Himself on HBO and the kids really loved it. Bubba's favorite part was when Bill Cosby fed his kids chocolate cake for breakfast, "Daddy's great...he feeds us chocolate cake." Junior just laughed during the whole thing. My favorite quote is, "Parents are not interested in fair. They are interested in quiet." Too funny!

No Cheap Shots Here

The day started with a trip to the pediatrician's office. Five year old Goggie was due for his Kindergarten physical. Part of the physical included a developmenal screening including a vision and hearing screening. Well, the little man tested with possible language processing deficiencies/delays and poor vision. YIKES! I had no idea. After all the challenges of having Bubba diagnosed with Asperperger Syndrome, Sensory Intergration Dysfunction, Poor Gross Motor Skills, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Gifted I.Q. (with what they called and Engineer's Profile), poor vision, and Tourette's Syndrome, I thought that I had payed my dues. Not so. The journey continues.

Anyway, back to the shots. We had a total of seven shots today. Goggy had three "Kindergarten Shots" plus a flu shot. Bubba had a flu shot and I had two allergy shots. And the day had just started...

Later we had music lessons, tap class (for Mama) to which I had to take Googie and then a Boy Scout meeting. It was a long, long day. But at dinner time Goggie made this for us.

It puts things into perspective, doesn't it? What a day.

My Life is Totally Boring

Yes, my life is so boring I really don't think I have much to write here. It's like that old McDonald's commercial, "I get up, go to work, go home, go to bed, I get up, go to work, go home, go to bed..." In a way, one could say that's a good thing. No excitement means that things are going along smoothly and I suppose that's pretty much right. So why the rant? I really don't know. I look around and see so many people with such strong opinions about this or that; living totally exciting lives with accolades to prove it. And I'm just glad that the day went along without anything of note.

Okay, so I had to chase the 5 year old in the soccer field WOO HOO! How's that for excitement? That's right, Goggie thought it would be great fun to wrestle Bubba in the field while I was trying to watch Junior play soccer. That on its own merit doesn't sound too bad, right? Nice wholesome, little boy activity not involving video, TV, computers or who knows what. But then we are in this huge field, with plenty of room all around, miles and miles of space as far as the eye can see (I like to exaggerate but you get the picture right?). Okay, well do you think they go wrestle out in the open spaces available to them? No, of course not. They find the only other person around and decide to wrestle right next to her, almost on her lap. Then Goggie thinks it would be great fun to run. Not out in the open spaces, no, but around and around that same poor woman. Yuppers.

Then, the possessed child runs off, crosses the streets and runs across the soccer complex so I have to chase the little rascal (yes, my life is PG rated so the language has to censored). And then when I manage to catch him 1 mile later, I spank his little hind end. Talk about a screaming banshee. I've never heard one before so I really don't know what a banshee sounds like, but I'm sure it can't be as loud as a 5 year old that was caught by his exasperated Mama. Obviously, I missed Junior's soccer game. Yup, that's excitement!

How about coming home and realizing that it's 8:00, no one has eaten dinner, I need to defrost the meat, put a meal together from scratch and on the table no later than 9:00, so that my OCD 12 year old son can be in bed before 9:30 per his therapist's instructions, all while talking to my sister on the phone (I thought it would be fun to call her since I hadn't talked to her in a while)? That was a rat race but I got it done. TA DA!

Now tomorrow promises to be another boring day. Non-stop boringness from morning till night. Wonder what we'll have for dinner????

Like I was saying, my life is totally boring...